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T9 4 remarkable occurrences 
curious work is written in the Swedish language; and fiom its high 
value, it may probably never appear in public. 
The vegetable reign remained the favourite branch of the studies of 
Linnaeus. Propitious nature unravelled to his penetrating eye many 
secrets and latent operations of the empire of Flora. His progress in 
the knowledge of the physiology and the properties of the plants ex- 
tended farther than that of any of his predecessors. 
The similitude which the plants bore to animals, was partly the basis 
of his system, the truth of which it confirmed in many respefds. In 
1754 he discovered that the plants are subjeQ; to a regular sleep, and 
repose by night like the animals. A plant, (Lotus Ornithofodioides), the 
seed of which had been sent him by professor D E SAUVAG E sof Mont- 
pellier, occasioned this new observation. It bore two flowers. He 
recommended the gardener to take the utmost care of them. Two days 
after Linnaeus returned late in the evening to see how they were 
thriving. Fie looked, searched and could discover no flowers. The 
next night he found them as invisible as before. The following morn- 
ing he came and the flowers appeared as usual, but the gardener thought 
they were fresh ones, as he had not been able to find any before, after 
so many unsuccessful searches. This circumstance engrossed the at- 
tention of Linn *us. He visited again the fugitive flowers on the 
third evening ; they had again vanished, but he found them at last, 
deeply wrapt up in and quite covered by some leaves. This only served 
to excite his curiosity more and more. In order to surprise nature in 
her wonders he perambulated the garden and the hot-house, in the 
dead of some night, with a lanthorn in his hand— and there saw that 
